Plasma sheet behavior during substorms

Technical Report · Sat Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1983

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/5389125· OSTI ID:5389125

Hones, Jr, E W

Auroral or magnetic substorms are periods of enhanced auroral and geomagnetic activity lasting one to a few hours that signify increased dissipation of energy from the magnetosphere to the earth. Data acquired during the past decade from satellites in the near-earth sector of the magnetotail have suggested that during a substorm part of the plasma sheet is severed from earth by magnetic reconnection, forming a plasmoid, i.e., a body of plasma and closed magnetic loops, that flows out of the tail into the solar wind, thus returning plasma and energy that have earlier been accumulated from the solar wind. Very recently this picture has been dramatically confirmed by observations, with the ISEE 3 spacecraft in the magnetotail 220 R/sub E/ from earth, of plasmoids passing that location in clear delayed response to substorms. It now appears that plasmoid release is a fundamental process whereby the magnetosphere gives up excess stored energy and plasma, much like comets are seen to do, and that the phenomena of the substorm seen at earth are a by-product of that fundamental process.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Lab., NM (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-36
• OSTI ID: 5389125
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-83-3361; CONF-8310229-5; ON: DE84003833
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

640201 -- Atmospheric Physics-- Auroral
Ionospheric
& Magetospheric Phenomena
640203* -- Atmospheric Physics-- Magnetospheric Phenomena-- (-1987)
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
AURORAE
DATA
EARTH ATMOSPHERE
ELECTRON DENSITY
ENERGY TRANSFER
EXPERIMENTAL DATA
GEOMAGNETIC FIELD
INFORMATION
MAGNETIC FIELD CONFIGURATIONS
MAGNETIC FIELDS
MAGNETIC STORMS
MAGNETOSPHERE
MAGNETOTAIL
NUMERICAL DATA
PLASMA SHEET
SOLAR ACTIVITY
SOLAR WIND